Goblin Talk

And then it crashes and we aren’t terribly sad.

Listen, I’m not going to do a big thing about it all because it’s been done at great length today. I will give my two cents.

Lance – As a cyclist, I am already obliged to dislike him. Funnily enough, he actually appears to encompass all the qualities that makes me dislike cyclists. In this case it probably comes from some delusion of self importance caused by him winning that stupid cycling tour or being a uniball. Apparently being a uniball means you only have to obey half the rules. Har har. I’m terrible I know.

Julius – Oh Julius. Bru, you don’t do yourself any favours. I know you think you’re untouchable and you think that it’s great to speak from the heart (or whatever is currrently sitting where your heart used to be) but really, stop putting your foot in your mouth. It’s just embarassing now. And get a facial because you look far too old to be heading up the youth league.

Jub Jub – You fucking idiot. If it wasn’t bad enough for those of us who enjoy moving fast, you’ve gone and made it worse with fucking idiotic and irresponsible behaviour. Dicing in the middle of the afternoon while drunk? Awesome. You’re just an evolutionary loser you are. When driving fast you actually have to be more careful and responsible, I’m just saying.

And now in my life, I have recruited Richard (who is doing an amazing job at a whole lifestyle change and has lost 18kg so far) to be my Mr Miyagi…the second. So far he’s doing a wonderful job – he’s made me feel guilty at least three times today about things like the bread my sandwich was made out of and not eating breakfast. He’s also trying to get me to go hiking. Despite all this, I still love him dearly. But be less disappointed in me (Oh and bloody well done love, it’s amazing how well you’re doing).

I’m in lots of it.

I got moaned at today because I haven’t been updating. My oh my I’m terribly sorry. :/

I do read your stuff though, I just haven’t been a good little commenter. Again…I’m sorry. :/

(If I put in enough sad faces, will you forgive me?)

Last night was the Oscars. Again. Imagine that.

Despite what everyone thought, a little war movie, The Hurt Locker, stopped that bigass waste of money, Avatar, from getting Best Picture and Best Director. Sure Avatar won some other awards but it’s the Best Picture one that is always so coveted. All I can say about this is that FINALLY! THE ACADEMY GOT IT RIGHT! It rarely happens. In fact, I’m still all sour about that award going to suicide boy last year (you know….what’s his name…Keith…something )

Then I watched Sherlock Holmes. Hmm. I wasn’t terribly impressed. In fact, I found it rather predictable. I was going to write why here but then I realised that it’s possible that some of you haven’t seen it. Overall, it’s good fun and it’s nicely close enough to being Holmes while having that Guy Richie touch.

Work is rocking my world. I love the environment, I love the guys working there and I love what I’m doing. I’m getting to push myself to try and achieve perfection and that’s always fun. Challenges, I embrace thee! I swear I’m not just saying this because my boss knows where my blog is. P.S. Thanks Boss man for letting us leave early on this hotter than hell day. It was super appreciated when I got to come home, have a cold shower and lie in front of the fan.

In other awesome news, the puppy ban has been lifted. The Boyf has decided that now is a good time to get one so we just have to sort out the formalities like writing a letter to the building’s trustees, although I’ve spoken to the chairlady and she has told me it won’t be a problem. Then we have to select a breed. Oh my. It will be a small dog but we’re really having trouble deciding. We do know that a Pug is definitely out because of how much they shed (not because some people regard them as ugly – you fascist bastards).

And finally, I declared war on my neighbour. She decided that 8a.m. on a Saturday morning was the perfect time on the one day I can sleep late to have her kids screaming their heads off right outside our bedroom window – a not easily accessible area on the property.

Seriously, you force me to update and you’re going to get crap I do have things set up properly now so I should be getting back to daily, or at least every second day, postings.

I don’t have much time before I have to go and play some Quake. I’m having withdrawl symptoms from working all week

Really, this week was awesome. I’m enjoying the new job loads and I find myself feeling at home quite quickly.

As for the lack of posts, well, I’m getting used to the whole working all day thing again so by the time I get home I don’t really feel like coming up with something to say…even uninteresting like this

It’ll get better

I’ve always felt that Whitesnake are underrated as a band. The same can be said for the Pet Shop Boys.

The funny thing is…when I say such things, people tell me I’m showing my age – a rather unladylike thing apparently. Of course that is the point at which I remind people that I’m 25 so they’re talking absolute shite.

This might seem like it has nothing to do with anything today and I just happened to be listening to Whitesnake at the moment…but you’d be wrong.

You see, Whitesnake created one of my all time favourite songs – Here I Go Again On My Own. (The capital letters are completely justified I assure you). It just so happens that this song is particularly relevant this week.

Tomorrow I start a new job.

Just digest that for a minute.

Now say it with me: “WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.”

See why the song is relevant? No? Oh. Well, bugger off then and let me sing it on my own if you’re going to be difficult.

So what happened is this. After last weeks nagging, a lovely person happened to see the post and contacted me to let me know they had an opening and asked me to come in for an interview – which apparently went well despite my ever present foot in mouth disease.

To that person, I know I’ve already said it a few times but really, thank you.

I am beyond nervous – I mean, it’s a new job after all. I’m sure I can do it and everything but still, nervous to the max. More importantly, I am also SO FREAKING EXCITED. It’s entirely possible that if you come near me, you’ll feel me vibrating from all the excitement. Erm. Mind out of gutter please. That’s a purely innocent form of excitement.

Late January 2010:

Still have not managed to get tickets for Avatar. Everyone and their auntie’s goat are going to see it again and again. I must admit to being quite relieved about this as I read the script earlier today and I am left feeling quite unimpressed but not at all surprised. While Cameron has given us movies that were a staple of my childhood, I can’t help but think it’s because I saw them as a child that I have such a fondness for them. Except Terminator. The dialogue in that still plagues me in the dead of the night. At times I wake up in a cold sweat from the memory of terrible dialogue.

9 February 2010:

Just gotten off the phone with the overbearing tyrant a.k.a. mom. Apparently she has managed to acquire those tickets for Avatar. Including one for me. Oh dear.

15 February 2010 8:26 a.m. :

The fated day is upon us. Despite my objections, I have been unable to wriggle my way out of going with tonight. I shall endeavour to keep an open mind. It will be difficult but I will try.

16 February 2010 12:09 a.m. :

So…

I tried keeping an open mind.

I don’t think it helped much.

Whilst the story wasn’t nearly as bad as I had expected (they were very low expectations, I mean, seventh level of hell low) – they had cleaned up the script a little bit and the actors made all the difference. About halfway through though, when my mind started wondering purely because I was bored, I realised that perhaps I would appreciate the story more if they had just made a Dances with the Wolves/Pocahontas story and focused on the Native Americans. Once I had finished thinking this though, I focused back onto the screen for a couple of seconds before zoning out again and conversing with myself in my head – there was some or other tree hugging thing going on. It occurs to me that a few people came out and said that there was a great message about how we should take care of the planet and be careful of global warming and generally be, well, tree huggers. Not a bad message as far as movies go although I do feel that if you need a movie to tell you that then perhaps you should stop breathing and help the planet out by offing yourself.

Could I stop there? Unfortunately no. I was terribly bored you see. I mean, it was a 2 hour 41 minute movie with a very thin plot, there was time to think. In other words, on my conversation went.

The evil part of my brain made itself heard at this point. It made the very good point that they spent so much money making this movie that basically, everyone stopped counting at half a billion dollars. Isn’t that a slap in the face to the eco lovers? I mean, people will come out and love their plants and what not for a week afterwards, but over all will return to their lifelong habits because it’s convenient so the message will only stick with very few people. Meanwhile, that half a billion dollars could have been used for something worthwhile and significant.

Of course this isn’t really an argument I put much store in, I believe they can spend that money however the hell they want to. If they don’t want to donate the profits to an organisation or the Haiti relief or the Dead Panda’s Society, then I’m not going to throw a hissy fit over it.

Although, evil Tara does appreciate how they used a movie with a message like that to make a TON of cash. But then, that figures. I was at the wellness shop there in Cavendish before the movie yesterday and that place also makes a ton of cash off of people’s good intentions. There was a pack of 3 rolls of carlton towels/paper towels/whatever you call them for R110. In plastic packaging. Unfortunately, it seems that they were just regular paper towels and wasn’t made from mixing the pulp with mink faeces. I think I may just stick to getting them from Clicks.

Do you think evil Tara was finished? Oh no, not at all. She immediately began thinking of Star Wars. And the Nazis. I mean, remember in Star Wars, how the Death Star gets blown up with a LOAD of stormtroopers? They were just there doing a job. Sure, some might have believed in the cause but some may have just been too scared to join the rebellion and decided a stable, paying job in the all powerful empire was a better idea. (We’re pretending the excuse of the clone army didn’t happen here). For a more valid and real life example, let’s look at the Nazis. Some of those poor bastards had no other choice but to join up for Hitler’s little picnic. It was a case of either join up or be labelled a Jew sympathiser and die perhaps. Or there was the fact that people had families to take care of.

I thought about all that while watching the Marines get the shit kicked out of them really. I tend to do that. Those guys were just out there doing a job and following orders and being fed a bunch of shitty propaganda. Sure there was the one chick who said, Fuck This, but come on, realistically she would be court marshalled and probably sentenced for treason…perhaps worse. Of course she died a hero so it’s okay.

Told you I was bored. I had way too much time to think about crap.

All in all, story/dialogue could have been worse – it could have been as low as my expectations. That was a surprise. A welcome one though since the rest of it didn’t live up to the hype.

For weeks I’ve been told how fantastic the graphics are and how amazing the 3D is. Well, Dear Diary, after watching it I can’t help but wonder how much of that praise was down to the aforementioned hype. You see, I just wasn’t left in the throes of orgasmic wonder and I felt bitterly disappointed. I was led to believe this would be the one saving grace. It was like being told you’re getting the most wonderful chocolate cake ever only to be given a sugar free slab of something brown resembling cake, but not actually cake.

I will admit that they did a wonderful job in constructing this elaborate world. Cleverly, they had designed everything to be so alien that nothing really stuck out as it normally does. I mean, there was no point where you had a big flashing sign that pointed down saying, “Obvious Special Effects and CGI right here”. It was well done and I can appreciate that much, but I still expected…more.

I didn’t really see the big hoopla about the 3D either to be completely honest. I could have happily watched it in plain old 2D and still been left in as little awe as I was. It all just seems like a gimmick that everyone else can appreciate, but I just don’t get.

16 February 2010 8:12 a.m. :

I decided last night to go and sleep on it before wholly forming an opinion of the experience. I can’t say that it helped much. It did make me remember something though.

The whole Avatar experience reminded me of The Dark Knight and its release. Everyone praised that to the high heavens as well and that also left me feeling a little bit cold. So I’ve decided, there’s a lot of overhyping going on.

How can I not feel that way at this point? I was bored. If I wasn’t wide awake, I would have used the opportunity to catch up on sleep confident in the knowledge that if I ever wanted to know the story, I could just study up on the Native Americans and replace them with Smurfs in my head. I was underwhelmed by the graphics and the world. I was underwhelmed by the last 30 minutes which was supposed to be the one portion of the film that entertained me.

Overall, I felt cheated. I wanted to be proven wrong. I wanted to be able to go in there and have it really live up to all the expectations of those swearing that it is a fantastic visual feast.

It just didn’t.

At which point I really appreciated that I had kept my mind open because otherwise, I may have walked out to do something more interesting and entertaining.

I’m quite keen for the sequel though. You know, when humans come back with bigger ships and a bigger military force. Because come on, who are we kidding here, if that unobtainium is worth so much, we would go back. You know, like Iraq…and oil…

I can see why people enjoyed it though, don’t get me wrong. I can fully understand their appreciation for it and, well, good for them. I’m not going to go out in a bid to change their minds, although god knows, they’re going to go on and on at me about how I just “didn’t get it” or some other bullshit purely because it wasn’t my cup of tea. I’ve even been kind to the Boyf with it all. I mean sure, it was his fault I got dragged along (you’d swear he would have learnt his lesson about doing this after the fuck up that was the Matrix: Revolutions), but he’s fully welcome to enjoy it. Different folks, different strokes etc.